Encouragements to pray

As Christians we often struggle with prayer. We may find it hard to concentrate or else we may feel that God does not hear us. To help combat this I urge you to re-read what the bible says about prayer and what godly men of old have said about it.

Recently I have been reading The Godly Man's Picture by the Puritan divine Thomas Watson. I find very little to compare with the Puritans' ability to convey truth in a way which is simple yet vivid and powerful. Their writings are redolent with earthy, poetic imagery which anyone could relate to. Watson is a keen example of this with pithy epithets such as "Prayer is a bomb which will make heaven's gates fly open. " When did you last think of your prayers like that? Prayer is the means that God has appointed for us to receive His help and His blessing and if you don't immediately receive an answer often it is because you are not persistent enough. I recently heard a message from Bill Hybels, pastor of the Willow Creek church in Chicago, Illinois who told the story of how he witnessed to his neighbour for six years before he came to faith. Hybels did not explicitly say so but I would be fairly confident that as well as the man being witnessed to by Bill, that Bill was also praying for him fervently during those six years.

Another reason we do not receive what we ask for in prayer is because we ask for the wrong reasons. If you are asking God to bless your finances is it because you want to be able to give more to the Lord's work or because you want to go out and buy a new sports car? God will honour the former but never the latter because you are just seeking to use Him as a cosmic vending machine (thanks to Josh McDowell for this analogy!). Again Watson said "See the reason why men's prayers are not heard. It is because they sin still. Sin clips the wings of prayer so that it will not fly to the throne of grace." This refers to what James calls "asking amiss" and also to the times where we are willfully sinning and slighting God's grace.

For more encouragement to pray you should listen to Leonard Ravenhill's message on Hannah from www.sermonindex.net and Paul Washer and Sidlow Baxter on prayer from the same website. Also read about great prayer warriors like Praying Hyde the missionary to India or of John Smith the great Methodist. There are also some great quotes at http://www.calvarybiblechurch.org/quotations.aspx?keyword=Prayer and at

http://www.bereabaptistchurch.org/banner/PDFs/March2005.pdf

I would encourage you to continue in prayer, even when you don't feel like it and if you feel like it is hard tell the Lord that and ask for His grace to help you to find it profitable. Ask Jesus to intercede on your behalf as you come to pray, for this is His role now, that God would find your prayers acceptable and ask the Holy Spirit to pray with you that He would utter those groans that no man can utter when we struggle for the words to pray.

May God bless you richly.

The wisdom of St. Augustine

Sometimes, we in Northern Ireland are quick to write off those who don't quite fit into our little theological box. Conservative evangelicalism in my home province, in its attempts to fight against the unbiblical teaching of the Roman Catholic church has, in effect thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Saints, because they are revered, yes and sometimes worshipped, are rejected in toto which is to our shame. If we look at what many of them said in their own writings, and forget about the hagiographical hogwash which the church of Rome has built up around them, then we would be a lot better off. St. Patrick is one keen example of this. He was a very humble man, conscious of his own sin and need of God. Another was St. Augustine.

Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo is a figure who most evangelicals don't even realise is key to their whole outlook. If there had been no Augustine there probably would have been no Martin Luther. Luther was an Augustinian monk and it was the founder of his order who keenly influenced his thinking.

Augustine's prayer, "God, command what You will and give [or "grant"] what you command” stressed his belief in man's bondage to sin commonly known as the total depravity of man. Essentially, the Saint is expressing his desire to do whatever God asked him to do but knowing his own corruption, he knew that God's grace was essential for the believer to do God's will. This view enraged a notable monk at the time called Pelagius who believed that Christians could live a righteous life without God's grace. He believed that God's grace was helpful but not essential! This view is of course totally unbiblical as we know from Augustine's hero St. Paul that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3v23), that "no one is made righteous by the works of the law" (Romans 3v20) and that "the just shall live by faith". St. Paul also said "for by grace you are saved through faith,and this not from yourselves it is the gift of God not of works so that no man can boast." (Ephesians 2v8-9). This controversy between Augustine and Pelagius was repeated with Calvin and Arminius, Luther and Erasmus and continues to this day. What this does show is that Augustine was thoroughly Pauline in his view of grace. Although he believed in transubstantiation and other things that might not sit well with some Protestants one read of the confessions, his auto-biography shows this was a man of faith with a great desire for God, who firmly believed that without God man was lost.

One prayer of Augustine's that really is immense and reflects his intense pursuit of God says:

"Oh! that Thou wouldest enter into my heart, and inebriate it, that I may forget my ills, and embrace Thee, my sole good!" In other words He wants God to so captivate (he uses inebriate which means to intoxicate or make drunk!) that nothing else would satisfy and that he would chase after God alone not for His gifts but for who He is, acknowledging that God is the only true benefit of life and the One whom we are created to enjoy and to glorify. This prayer is reminiscent of King David who said "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God." (Psalm 42v1) How many people do you know like that, that want God to come in and make them fall head over heels in love with Him, so much so that nothing else matters? We could do with a few more Christians like that I reckon!

Blessings!

Andy.

Introduction

Hi! I am Andrew McKinney and I a member of Ballymena Baptist Church. I have recently been accepted by Baptist Missions as an Associate Volunteer worker and will be going (D.V.) to Algeciras, southern Spain some time in August. I will be working alongside two missionary couples already working in the area, the Reids who work with the Cristo Viene (Christ is coming) church and the Elliotts who work with the Renacer (Rebirth) church.

My first exposure to outreach in Spain was back in 2001 in Palencia as part of a summer evangelism team. I was then invited by Andrew Reid to come to Algeciras in 2005 as part of the first team they had there. That summer I helped run the children´s outreach on the beach and the other evangelism efforts. I left that year thinking seriously about how I could prepare to come out on a longer basis. I always enjoyed languages at school, particularly Spanish, which I studied right up to A Level and that summer I felt God speaking to me about using that gift in some way for Him.

Having had a teaching background, I decided that the best way to combine my gifts and past experience would be to train to teach English as a foreign language. To enable me to do this, I spent 18 weeks from February to June 2007 at Belfast Institute and completed the CELTA course. (Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults.)

I envisage myself in a sort of tentmaker role where I would be teaching English in one of the many private English academies in Algeciras. This would enable me to make contacts in the community but also would provide me with a level of income towards my overall support. I would also be helping in the life of the Cristo Viene church with music, outreach and possibly visitation. This means that there will be a small team in Algeciras with me meeting regularly with the Elliotts and the Reids.

Long-term the vision is to be able to offer cut-price homework clubs in needy
neighbourhoods. This will depend on how much my time is tied up with other teaching commitments.

Whilst I hope to be mainly self-supporting through my teaching I nevertheless will need to raise a degree of finance, especially for my first months and to tide me over the summers when I will probably earn less. Please also pray for me that I will be able to find a suitable job which will provide me with a reasonable income without impeding my service with the Reids and the Elliotts outside work hours.

I thank you for your interest and pray that God will bless you as you partner together with me in the work of taking God’s message to the land of Spain.